Under the baobab: Reflections on Thanksgiving, community happenings and more
Happy Thanksgiving, Sisters and Brothers. I hope that you spent the day celebrating and feasting with family and friends. In this season, we are blessed with opportunities to reconnect with those we love, to kindle the fires of joyous memories. Even though Thanksgiving, the myth, is a greater story than the historical reality.
Many of us were raised to believe that the day commemorates an historic moment when the Indigenous people feasted with their European immigrant neighbors, the Pilgrims, sharing the harvest that the Indigenous people helped the settlers to grow. Neighbors from different cultures created community to make it through the difficult winter.
In Jamestown, Virginia, it was a different story. The recently arrived Europeans used violent force, attempting to steal the Indigenous people’s food. They responded by isolating those “settlers.” The evidence shows starving Europeans resorted to cannibalism of their own people. They did not survive.
Around town
Congratulations to senior running back Kaytron Allen. His now Penn State’s all-time career rushing leader with 3,954 yards. He has an opportunity to become PSU’s first 4,000-yard rusher on Saturday at the Rutgers finale. He was named the Big Ten co-offensive player of the week. Nick Singleton tied Saquon Barkley in total career touchdowns and also has the opportunity to surpass it at Rutgers. Interim head coach Terry Smith won his second game and first in Beaver Stadium. Strong support from the players and fans clearly put Smith’s hat in the ring for the position of permanent head coach.
Elsewhere in the community, the Center for the Performing Arts (CPA) and the School of Music will present “Mosiac,” the annual student concert showcase, at the Eisenhower Auditorium at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 7. Also at Eisenhower, CPA will present “An Evening with Neil deGrasse Tyson, An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies,” on Tuesday, Dec. 2.
The resistance continues: Candles for Peace stand to end war in Gaza and Ukraine on Mondays from 5-5:30 p.m. at Allen Street Gates. On Thompson Tuesdays, 25-50 people gather outside Rep. Glenn Thompson’s Bellefonte office at 5 p.m. In a slight thawing of the MAGA iceberg, after a dispute with the President, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green has declared that she will resign her office in 2026. The Republican majority in the House will become one vote. The midterms are less than a year away.
And We the people may have rescued WPSU, our local public broadcaster. After a major letter writing campaign and robust fundraising drive, there is an arrangement in process for WHYY of Philadelphia to take over the administration of the station while maintaining WPSU’s independent voice. When the people speak and stand together, we move forward together.
My mother, God rest her soul, lived her entire life within a two-mile area of Chicago’s South Side, yet she maintained a broad world view. She and the other women who helped raise me believed that the first inviolable commandment is you never intentionally hurt the children. The second is that they are all our children. Our duty as parents, teachers and members of human society is to protect and nurture the children. You don’t drop bombs on them or set their homes on fire. You don’t starve or abuse them; you provide their family with SNAP benefits. You don’t deny them medical care; you extend their medical insurance. You don’t sabotage their lives by destroying the planet.
Our children are precious. We should not treat them as if they are collateral damage in some greater cause. There is no greater cause than the protection and nurturing of our children whether in Gaza, Israel, Sudan, Ukraine, Southside Chicago or Centre County. Those who say or act otherwise are liars. Liars cannot guide us through the winter. As Ken Burns shows us in “The American Revolution,” creating and maintaining a democracy is not easy.
We need each other.
Charles Dumas is a lifelong political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Congress in 2012. He is a Lions Paw honoree. He lives in State College with his wife and partner of over 50 years.